


Photograph

by Likerealpeopledo



Category: The Mindy Project
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-13
Updated: 2014-07-13
Packaged: 2018-02-08 17:57:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1950732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Likerealpeopledo/pseuds/Likerealpeopledo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a drabble (is that the correct terminology, I'm new?) ; inspired by Ed Sheeran song "Photograph"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Photograph

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at Fan Fiction EVER so be gentle. Oh so gentle.  
> I actually love writing dialogue the most so of course, I have written zero dialogue in my first go 'round. 
> 
> I love reading all you guys and I know I'm not bringing anything new in this one, but I needed to try one on for size.

For at least four years, from late 2008 until early 2013, Daniel Castellano carried a folded photograph of his wedding day tucked into the darkest recess of his faded leather wallet. He kept it behind his insurance card, behind his gym membership, and deep enough that it couldn’t be discerned by a nosy co-worker checking for ones when she grabbed his wallet to tip a delivery man at lunch time because she flatly refused to carry cash. 

Danny didn’t have a reason for carrying the photo that he could articulate, but he just knew that he needed it. He wasn’t superstitious, and he certainly didn’t believe that carrying the photo was going to magically bring Christina and himself back together. But he needed it to remind himself to do better. Clearly, he broke something; there was something he could have repaired that would have kept his marriage together. He knew when he married her that it was forever. Forever turned out to be so much shorter than he planned. 

Mistakes were made. He didn’t tell her how he felt enough. He didn’t reach out to stroke her hair when she seemed sad. He strove to be the best in his med school class, his residency, and he forgot to strive to be the best in his relationship. He was afraid to argue with her, because everything seemed so fragile. He thought it was because she was an artist, and she was sensitive, and he was a boisterous Italian from the Island who just felt his feelings and moved on. He didn’t know at the time that every time he withheld his thoughts or his feelings from her, that she grew a little bit more distant. He thought he was doing what was best for them both, building a life that made her comfortable. He had no idea how uncomfortable she was until she was gone. 

For four years, the picture froze them in time. She seemed so soft and dreamy, in her lacy white dress, and Danny, with his hand firmly on her back, looked softer and dreamier too. His smile met his eyes and he saw idealism and peace. Before he found her in bed with another man, before she broke his heart and he had to rebuild a life without her. For four years, he was desperate to build a time machine and go back. He dreamt frequently of blue prints and equations that would magically transport him to the moment before he opened the door to their apartment. He wasn’t deluded; he knew it wasn’t possible, so the folded, faded photograph was the next best thing. It was his time machine. 

Until Mindy.

With Mindy, he didn’t need a photograph to remind him to do better. Mindy was the brightest, shiniest, spectral event he had ever witnessed. There were times when he considered having to cut a hole in a piece of construction paper so he could look directly at her. He made immense mistakes with Mindy too; he was cowardly and distant and stupid, but still she allowed him back in. Despite any wrong that he had committed, she hadn’t hardened; she hadn’t grown brittle from his mistakes. He didn't know what made this time different, only that it was. 

The day he took that faded, dated photograph out of his wallet was the same day that he realized it was possible for him to love someone else as wholly, but better. That was possible for him to try again, to dust himself and try again. He didn't get it right the first time he tried, once he was overcome by fear and self-loathing and self-doubt, because 39 years of it was too much to overcome in too short of a time. But he knew that he wanted to, and he knew that he needed to, because he knew exactly what he wanted. He didn't want a frozen memory of Mindy, he didn't want things between them to be too fragile to name, he didn't want to feel his feelings alone anymore. He wanted Mindy. And when Danny Castellano took the photo of his first marriage out of his wallet, never to be returned, he knew he intended Mindy to be his second. But this time, it would be the forever that he imagined.


End file.
